The TRUTH About “Working From Anywhere” + My 11 Best Practices

The TRUTH About “Working From Anywhere” + My 11 Best Practices

The laptop lifestyle is HOT right now. Mmmm…sun, surf, and a four hour work week.

In today's episode of #AwkwardMarketing, I'm taking on the not-so-sexy TRUTH about "working from anywhere" and my best practices for running a business while traveling or living in another country (after 8 years in Mexico + around the world).

Tune in for my 11 BEST PRACTICES for working on the road, whether you're on a working vacay or a permanent digital nomad.

I see you Googling "how to work from ANYWHERE BUT HERE." You're sick of everyone else posting their travel "office" selfies on the beach/poolside/in a hot tub.

YOU DESERVE TO MAKE MONEY IN A HOT TUB, DARNIT! WHEN WILL YOUR MOMENT COME?

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET ANYTHING MEANINGFUL DONE IN A HOT TUB! (Other than getting some sweet jet action on that one really sore spot on your lower back.)

I spent 8+ years running a business "from anywhere" (but, mostly, Mexico) and I learned some lessons along the way about hot tubs and the "digital nomad" life. Mainly:

** It costs $1200 to repair a sandy MacBook
** Airplane wifi is about as valuable as all those "FREE AOL" CDs your parents still have piled up in their basement
** Working on the road is 99% hotel room, 1% beach selfies

So, the next time you see a "Today's Office" selfie featuring some smugpreneur's legs extended on a beach chair in front of the open ocean (or a jet-filled tub) you can smile to yourself knowing that you're probably looking at their greatest accomplishment that day.

But that doesn't mean you can't have your own hot tub moment!

In my 8+ years working in Mexico, Guatemala, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Kenya, and a ROUGH 36 hour stint in the UAE, I also learned a thing or two about working on the road SUCCESSFULLY, which is what I'm breaking down in today's episode of Awkward Marketing!

YES, YOU CAN WORK ON THE ROAD! Here are my 11 top tips and best practices, learned mostly through mistakes and a few moments of good luck!

Show Notes: The Quick ‘n’ Dirty

The laptop lifestyle is HOT right now. Mmmm…sun, surf, and a four hour work week.

In this episode of #AwkwardMarketing, I’m taking on the not-so-sexy TRUTH about “working from anywhere” and my best practices for running a business while traveling or living in another country (after 8 years in Mexico + around the world).

Tune in for my 11 BEST PRACTICES for working on the road, whether you’re on a working vacay or a permanent digital nomad. I see you Googling “how to work from ANYWHERE BUT HERE.” You’re sick of everyone else posting their travel “office” selfies on the beach/poolside/in a hot tub.

YOU DESERVE TO MAKE MONEY IN A HOT TUB, DARNIT! WHEN WILL YOUR MOMENT COME?

Well, here’s some real talk about “working from anywhere” that might quell your hot tub selfie jealousy. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET ANYTHING MEANINGFUL DONE IN A HOT TUB! (Other than getting some sweet jet action on that one really sore spot on your lower back.)

I spent 8+ years running a business “from anywhere” (but, mostly, Mexico) and I learned some lessons along the way about hot tubs and the “digital nomad” life. Mainly:

It costs $1200 to repair a sandy MacBook

Airplane wifi is about as valuable as all those “FREE AOL” CDs your parents still have piled up in their basement

Working on the road is 99% hotel room, 1% beach selfies

So, the next time you see a “Today’s Office” selfie featuring some smugpreneur’s legs extended on a beach chair in front of the open ocean (or a jet-filled tub) you can smile to yourself knowing that you’re probably looking at their greatest accomplishment that day. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have your own hot tub moment!

In my 8+ years working in Mexico, Guatemala, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Kenya, and a ROUGH 36 hour stint in the UAE, I also learned a thing or two about working on the road SUCCESSFULLY, which is what I’m breaking down in today’s episode of Awkward Marketing!

YES, YOU CAN WORK ON THE ROAD! Here are my 11 top tips and best practices, learned mostly through mistakes and a few moments of good luck!

Full Transcript: The Whole Shebang

Oh hey, it’s RKA. I’m just plannin’ out a road trip, going to South Carolina in a couple weeks, guys, and I gotta get my stuff together. Speaking of working on the road, fancy that, it’s our topic for today. Hey, it’s RKA and it’s another episode of Awkward Marketing. Marketing yourself is awkward, but if you’re building an online business in 2017, you gotta do it, so let’s do it together. Why don’t we? Huh?

So, last year I wrote this blog called Yes, I’m Working on the Beach, No, I’m Not Getting Anything Done, and it is a truthful tale of my time as a digital nomad, if you will, working overseas, working in different countries, working while traveling, and the pressure and like the cool kids club to like, post a selfie on the beach being like, “Today’s office. Here I am, here are my toes. “Workin’ in the sand, here’s my laptop. “You know, rackin’ up $1,200 in charges “from Apple because I got sand in it,” and so I am admitting to you full out, I’ve posted many, you know, “today’s office” selfies throughout the years, and they’re all, they’ve all been bullshit, what can I say? Sofia is gonna be on the road in just a few weeks. Yeah, aren’t you doing a cross country, like, not cross country, cross European tour with your hubby, right? So Sofia’s hittin’ the road, and Sofia’s an amazing online business manager, VA, so her whole thing is online business and she’s takin’ her biz, her online biz on the road so this is for you, Sofia. This is for you.

Oh man, I’ve learned some tough lessons. I lived in Mexico for a little bit over eight years and in that time, I was mostly based in Mexico. I’ll be real about that, so digital nomad is a little bit of an exaggeration, but I did travel quite a bit. I went to Germany, I went to Hungary, I went to Guatemala, I want to Kenya, I had a horrible, nightmarish experience in the Dubai airport for 36 plus hours, so I did do some working on the road. I’ve worked on buses, I’ve worked on planes, I’ve worked on trains, I’ve worked in cars, I’ve worked while walkin’ down the street, right, and so I did some things the hard way.

I learned some painful lessons, and that’s why I’m here sharing this stuff with you so that you don’t have to learn the hard way and you too can work from anywhere while also keeping in mind that that beach selfie, it’s all for show, people. You’re gonna go and make a production out of gettin’ that selfie on the beach and then you’re gonna go back to your hotel room and get the real work done, and that’s just the truth of the matter. Don’t bring your laptop to a sandy beach bar. It’s just, it’s, you know, disaster is waiting for you.

So, guess what? I have 10 tips for you today, and it was hard to actually boil them down to 10. I could’ve done 15, 20, 25, 30 of these, but I’m gonna keep it tight, I’m gonna keep it short and sweet, and this is all about working on the road. Again, whether you are going on a working vacay or you’re just uprootin’ and sayin’, “I’m out here, “I’m taking this show on the road,” this is for you, and I’m just gonna hit it.

Top tip, number one tip, and this is a three parter. It’s all about that net, ’bout that net, now baby. I got a deal worked out with Meghan Trainor where we’re goin’ on the road with that one. So, internet, internet all day long, everybody sing the internet song. When you’re working from the road, on the road, from the road, above the road, beneath the road, beside the road, if you’re working in any of those ways while traveling, internet is gonna be your best friend and your biggest enemy. And so I’ve got three kind of tips for you in terms of handling internet. Oh my god, Sofia says that, you know, that she had airport horror stories. Oh no, yeah. Tunisia airport during Ramadan, I couldn’t move. Yeah, it’s so interesting wen you learn a lot about different places even just from the airports, and I was in the Dubai airport. Speaking of internet. You know, this is one thing. My first tip, this is an unofficial tip that just came to me but when, you know, when an airport web site promises you free WiFi, don’t believe them. Don’t base an entire 36 hour layover on getting free internet at the Dubai airport and hoping that works out. You know, I’m not speaking from experience, but I am, and that was a painful time. It was also painful because we didn’t have enough money for a hotel, so we had to stay in the airport for 36 hours. We slept. I’ve got pictures on Instagram of like, myself wrapped up like a burrito in a blanket trying to get some Zs. These days, I probably would spring for a hotel, so things have changed, so that’s, so I guess that’s good news. Okay, so it’s all about that net. Don’t trust the Dubai airport if they tell you they’ve got free WiFi. They’re lying, and they’ll do absolutely nothing to rectify it once you find out that it’s not true, so that was a lesson learned the hard way, but internet, so yeah, you know, one of my first tip about the internet when working on the road is, you do wanna do your research.

You wanna research hotels, you wanna research local coffee shops, you wanna research the airports, and then you wanna have several backups, because your hotel web site might say, “Oh, free in-room WiFi. “We’ve got WiFi in the lobby and da da da.” You get there, “Oh, sorry, our WiFi’s down,” and guess who isn’t gonna refund you? That hotel. Nine times out of 10, they’re not gonna care. They’re gonna be like, “Sorry, not sorry,” you know. Cost of doing business on the road. So you not only wanna research where the great internet is wherever you might be traveling to and from and staying. You need to have backups. That’s so hugely important and I can’t emphasize that enough.

You want to expect, along with this, you wanna expect that that internet is gonna move a lot slower than it ever will at home. Doesn’t matter if you’re staying in the best hotel in the whole wide world, internet on the road always moves slower. Account for that, plan for that, budget for that, and speaking of slow, I mean, if I had one tip, like central tip for working when you are on the road, is you want to anticipate that everything is gonna take more time than you expected it to, that you will move slower in terms of your productivity than you do at home and if you don’t make time for that, if you don’t plan for that, you’re gonna be looking at, you know, a huge to do list, 90% of which is not done, lots of guilt, and you’re gonna kick yourself. You’re gonna feel bad.

You’re gonna feel like a failure because you have not accounted for the inevitable, the distractions and the slow internet and the jet lag or just the travel lag in general, so you wanna prepare for everything to move slower, whether it’s the internet or just you. You are going to move slower when you’re working on the road. That’s just the truth. One of my biggest mistakes that I’ve made over the years, like, I’ll plan a trip and I’ll be like, “Okay, I’m gonna get tons of stuff done “in the taxi on the way to the airport “and when I’m in the airport I’ll get another straight hour “and then I’m gonna be on the plane “and I’m gonna rock it out on the plane “and I’m gonna get off the plane, “I’m gonna go to the hotel, I’m not even gonna sleep. “I’m gonna stay up all night and I’m gonna get it done,” and guess how much of that happens? Like, negative zero. I like, did less than I, like, I did less than nothing, so you gotta plan for it. Megan says, “It’s free and will even work long enough “for you to pay to connect the good WiFi.” I am totally not even sure what we’re talking. Oh yeah, I don’t, yeah, I lost my. Megan, I’m just gonna feel your vibes and hope that I can circle back to that later. Emily says, “Yeah, yesterday I spent “about four hours working. “I got distracted by the air conditioning “in some clothing shops.” Yep, oh right, yeah, distracted by the air conditioning in the clothing shops. Yeah, ’cause here’s the thing.

You know, speaking of moving slower when you’re working on the road, you do also need to build in that time for sight seeing, you need to build in the time for the inevitable distractions or the people that you meet in the hotel lobby that wanna get drinks tonight, and you wanna make space for that, ’cause what’s the point of working while you’re traveling if you don’t actually get to enjoy the air conditioning in the clothing shops in Paris where Emily is working right now? Emily, we just launched her site this week, BonVivantCopy.com. She actually, speaking, this is a perfect topic for her ’cause she is a copywriter for travel agencies and travel businesses, so so glad to have you here, Emily. So yeah, I mean everything is gonna move slower on the road. Plan for that, prepare for that, and you also wanna test out your internet before you do any, you know, if you’ve got a big meeting and you’re like, relying on the Courtyard Marriott to hook you up, you better test out that Zoom connection before you do the live meeting. You gotta test that net. So you wanna test the net, you wanna research, you wanna have backups, so if your Courtyard Marriott’s internet is down, which it has been for me, you wanna know what’s the closest coffee shop, when does it open, when is it, you know, like when does it close, and if that coffee shop is, you know, what are my backups here, and speaking of backups, we’re here at my number two tip, and that is…

I’ve seen a lot of digital nomads have tons of success when they plan their trips around coworking spaces. There are so many coworking spaces all around the world. Oh my gosh, there’s this great web site. What is it? It’s DeskSharing.net, I think. Hold on, let me check. DeskSurfing.net. If you go to DeskSurfing.net, you can check out all of the different coworking spaces in cities around the world and you don’t need a monthly subscription for a lot of them.

A lot of coworking spaces offer a day pass, so if you’re in Paris for a week and you need to get some work done and you don’t wanna worry, you know, you don’t wanna rely on your local hotel internet, check out a coworking space there. See if you can get a day pass. Go there for the day, crank it out for eight hours, and then spend the rest of your trip sight seeing. You know, so planning your trip around coworking spaces and looking for coworking spaces where you’re gonna be traveling is brilliant. No, not everywhere in the, where I was living in the world in [Inaudible] Mexico, there really were no coworking spaces but there also was no shortage of cafes with internet, so I always had a good, in the early days when I was living there, and sometimes I didn’t have internet at my home, I had like three to five go to coffee shops that I would, you know, kind of alternate between them to make sure that I had stable WiFi and I researched that and planned that ahead of time.

So, plan your trips around coworking spaces if you can. Coworking for the win, am I right? So that’s that. Here’s another thing. So there’s just gonna be times when you don’t have internet, okay? So I mentioned before, I’ve worked on buses, I’ve worked on planes, I’ve worked on trains, I’ve worked in cars, I’ve worked, you know, traveling across like the bumpy mountain, you know, landscape going from Mexico to Guatemala for example, the 13 hour microbus ride, and so how did I make sure to prepare? How did I plan and prepare for that? Well, I prepped my online stuff that I needed so that I could access it offline. So for example, sometimes when I’m designing a brand design, I will have a Pinterest board that I’ve created for myself to inspire me and give me different ideas as I’m putting together a brand, and so I will go the night before I know I’m gonna be internetless for a day, I will go and I will download, you know, a bunch of online content. I will download it for use offline so that I can still be super mega productive even when I can’t connect to the internet. So I’ll do research ahead of time and I’ll download a bunch of articles. Let’s say I’m writing a blog and I need to do some research. I’ll do all my research ahead of time. I’ll save those web pages on my computer, make sure I have that so I’m prepped for offline time. You know, and I batch certain activities so that I know, okay, I’m gonna have a whole 13 hours on a microbus tomorrow. I wanna get a couple hours at least of productive time. How can I prepare myself for that offline time and make sure I’m still productive? So that’s been a huge one for me is prepping myself the night before or, you know, sometimes the morning of, five minutes before we leave, gettin’, you know, downloadin’ stuff off the internet.

So, that would be number three. You wanna plan for your offline time and prepare for that. Okay, number four is just, it’s a quick one, it’s an easy one. When I was living in Mexico for eight years, I had a Mexican cell phone, but my clients, many of whom were US-based, didn’t wanna call my Mexican cell phone. It was very difficult for me to be like, “Hey, just dial plus sign five two and then the one.” Nope, not gonna do. I wanna keep it super easy for my clients. Even if I’m not there, I wanna make it really easy for them to call a US number, and so what I did is I set up a Skype number. I think it’s like, I don’t know, like 70 something dollars a year, and so I set up a Skype number and I have it to, or I had it, I actually still have it set up. It’s still there, it’s still working, to redirect to my mobile phone so I can tell a US-based client, “Hey, call me on my cell,” you know, give ’em a US number. It’s not any additional charges for them. They don’t have to worry about calling codes and all that good stuff, and that redirects to my cell. Now, am I getting charged, you know, kind of premium rate by Skype to do that? A little bit. I can’t remember what the minute by minute cost of it was, but in terms for me of making it super easy for my clients and also helping them to feel like even though I’m not right by you, even though I’m not in the United States right now, I’m still here ready to take care of you. You don’t have to worry, you can access me. Here’s a US-based number. That was a huge life saver for me. A game changer for me was buying a Skype number and then forwarding all my calls to my local mobile phone, so bing bang boom, shock-a-loom, am I right?

And so that’s number four. Get a Skype number, redirect it to your local, you know, the foreign mobile phone. It works like a charm. Speaking of tools to help you do business kind of, you know, to feel like you’re still doing business in your, you know, home country, in my case the United States, while you’re away, there’s so many amazing virtual mail services. One of my favorites that I used for a little while was Earth Class Mail, and so what it would do is, you get your mail sent to a, you know, either, you know, PO box or you’ve got, you know, your parents’ address or you’ve got a permanent address of some point or of some kind, get your mail sent there. Earth Class Mail. You can forward it then to Earth Class Mail. They will scan your mail for you. They will put all the scans online. In many cases they will send you, you know, your packages or important mail documents that you need the actual physical mail. They’ll send it to you wherever you will be in the world, so having a virtual mail service is amazing because, you know, there are some certain mail, like, you know, mail from the IRS or, you know, mail from your, you know, state government or whatever that you’re gonna wanna have access to and this avoids you having to ask your mom to go check your mailbox for you because, you know, props to my mom, she did so much unpaid, like, assistant work when I was living in Mexico.

And that actually leads me to my number six tip, which is that I highly recommend hiring a local, hiring someone back home, if you will, to, you know, maybe on a retainer basis a couple hours a month, to be your kind of homebound assistant. So there are gonna, you know, inevitably be things that you have to do that have to kind of take place in your country or things that have to go through the mail, and for me in Mexico for example, if I send something in the mail, it would be months before it would arrive. People would send me mail in like, you know, I got my cousin’s wedding invitation like six months after her wedding took place, okay, and finally I got the invitation. Sorry I didn’t RSVP. I got the, you know, I got the invitation six months late, so there were certain things that I needed to get done, you know, in the States when I was in Mexico, and if I had only, this is not something that I did.

This is something I would do if I was going back, which would be to hire a, you know, an assistant in the States to help me with some of those kind of you gotta be there activities and give my good ole mom a break because she got kind of sick of being my unpaid assistant, I gotta say. So that would be, what is that, my number six tip? I kind of moved it up. All right, speaking of difficult, speaking of things that my mom did for me out of the kindness of her heart when I was working in Mexico, you also wanna check and make sure before you hit the road that you are working, you’ve got a bank that will send you replacement debit cards or credit cards in the mail wherever you may be in the universe. So I didn’t do that. That was a lesson I learned the hard way. I didn’t do that, so I’ve had, I mean, how many times did my debit card get stolen when I was in Mexico? How many times did, you know, did I accidentally leave it in an ATM? I don’t wanna tell you, okay? It’s embarrassing, but it was a lot, and so you know, I learned the hard way that my, you know, I didn’t have a bank that was friendly to that. I didn’t have a bank that was friendly to travel. Not only that, but every damn month I had to call my bank and re-remind them that I wasn’t in the States ’cause they’d put a hold on my account, and there’s nothing worse than being at a, you know, an ATM trying to get money out and them blocking you and you having to go back to wherever you’re staying or living, call ’em up on the phone, get them to unblock your card, so you really wanna have a travel-friendly bank. You wanna look into, if I’m in Morocco and I get my debit card stolen, will my bank send me a new one or am I gonna have them send it to my mom who then FedExes it to me and I’m waitin’ by the, you know, I’m waitin’ by the, you know, FedEx office or whatever. Just don’t do it, guys. Make sure your bank has your back.

That’s number seven. I gotta, that is number seven. Okay, all right, let’s talk about, speaking of disasters, speaking of disasters, you also wanna make sure that you’ve got backup tech, okay? Not only do you wanna make sure you have backup internet, like, solutions, you know. If your hotel internet goes down, is there a cafe close? Is there a a coworking space? You also wanna have backup tech, and I know that this isn’t sexy to say because it’s, you know, when you’re livin’ the digital nomad life, it’s all about packing light.

Here are some items that are gonna be really important for you to add to your backpack, if you will. You wanna have an extra power cord, okay? Just get that extra power cord. I can’t tell you how many times I was in places in the world where, you know, they had to order out, you know, like my Mac, you know, my MacBook power cord went on the fritz and they had to order it from like, across the country or from another country. It was gonna take a few weeks. A few weeks? Without my computer? Oh my goodness, and you know, maybe you’re lucky, you happen upon a fellow traveler that will lend you their laptop cord, but in my case I wasn’t always so lucky, so having an extra cord for your computer is huge.

And maybe you’ve seen those commercials happening ’cause they’re, you know, for Apple. They’re pluggin’ their new iPad Pro, but I’ve gotta tell you, I got one a couple of years ago, got one of those little portable keyboards, and having that as a backup was great ’cause there were times when it was just easier to take that with me to a coffee shop than my clunky laptop and also yes, I’ve had computers crap out on me in the middle of, you know, and I gotta hit a deadline, I have no backups, nobody can lend me a computer. Having backup tech is so important, not to mention the fact that there are so many places in the world where there won’t be, there won’t be like a local Apple store or there won’t be a local shop that’s gonna, you know, you’re gonna have to send out your tech, you know, far away and wait weeks for it to come back to you. That was my case.

When we were living in Mexico, there was no Apple store anywhere near, and to get my Mac back required me to wait several weeks, you know, to get it serviced, so that’s a nightmare, so you just wanna have some backup tech. And Sofia says she loves her iPad Pro so much. I’m one of those nerds with two screens. Right? Ooh dude, you need to teach me how to do, I’ve never done a two screen. Do you do the two screens with the iPad Pro and your computer or, this is a hack I need in my life. Okay, yes, so I’m lovin’ the iPad Pro and I love that as a backup computer. I think it’s really great. I’m a web designer so it doesn’t do all the massive heavy lifting, but definitely emails, client communications, doing some light design work, research, all that good stuff can happen on an iPad Pro, and just making sure I got that, you know, tech backup that I need.

All right, my number nine tip, and this tip, I always find a way to sneak this tip in because I can’t say it enough. When you’re working on the road, whether you’re on vacay or you’re doing it permanently like I did, you wanna get keyed in and hooked up into some amazing online communities. I’m in a couple awesome online communities I could run my business without. Not only do I get leads and all that good stuff. That happens, but really it’s about camaraderie. It’s about not feeling alone. It’s about having a sense of, you know, having coworkers, having teammates who are on your side and not feeling, you know, lonely, as well as, yeah, you know, if you’re traveling with or you know, around other people that don’t really understand what it’s like to run a business on the road, it can just be so supportive and heartening to have those people, you know, to have those people who have your back.

So, being connected to online communities was vital for me as well as yeah, you know, when I was first starting my biz I didn’t have the opportunity to go to in person networking events, you know. It wasn’t, you know, I was in Mexico. That wasn’t my clientele. I wasn’t targeting local people. You know, that wasn’t, I wasn’t trying to take away jobs from any local designers, so being engaged in online communities really just, you know, kept me going and kept me moving forward and kept me growing as a business owner and all the support and camaraderie is priceless, so, I mean, you gotta get hooked up into some online communities.

And okay, I’m actually gonna throw in an extra one. Number 10, ’cause I got a number 11 for you. It’s like my favorite tip ever, so number 11 is on its way, but number 10 would be you gotta get a good accountant that specializes in expat taxes and accounting, okay? I didn’t do this until the, you know, until the last few years and I gotta tell you, first of all, this accountant saved me thousands of dollars because if you’re in the United States and you spend most of your year out of the country, you can actually get a tax credit, or it’s actually, I don’t know if that’s what it is. I’m not an accountant, okay? You know, like don’t, don’t take my word for it, but you can get essentially, you will get tax benefits for not being in the United States, the foreign earned income credit, and thanks to my amazing expat accountant, I was able to save thousands of dollars because he gave me the, you know, he knew all the tricks, so having an amazing accountant that specializes in taxes for people who are digital nomads will save you thousands of dollars and headaches, because there’s nothing worse than doing your taxes when you’re overseas, you know. It’s like, where, you know, if you need help, ain’t nobody comin’ for ya, you know what I’m sayin’, so get yourself a good accountant, and that’s another shout out to my mom. She’s not my accountant, but she is an accountant and I just wanted to say I admire you, Mom.

Thanks for everything. Okay, so, number 11, I told you it’s my favorite tip and this is just a life, a life hack that I like to tell. Okay, you’re waitin’ in the airport and maybe you’re waitin’ in the bus station or you’re waitin’ in the train station. You’re waitin’ in the airport to board your plane. You know when you’re boarding your plane, like everybody rushes to get in line? Like, everybody wants to be first in line, and then they wait, and they wait for 15, 20, 30 minutes. You know, you know, boarding slowly, like, inching up. Oh, this person ahead of me moved up a couple steps. I gotta move up a couple steps, and then you just wait and wait. What? My number 11 tip, this is my favorite hack for traveling in general, always be the last person on the plane, okay, because otherwise what you’re doing is you’re just standing and waiting and wasting your time.

So, I mean, I don’t know if any of you are like me, but I like to get every last minute I can before I board the plane to juice up my laptop, right? And so I wanna get all that good laptop juice, so I’m sittin’ watching everybody just stand in line, inching forward, and I’m just computing and productivity-ing and all that good stuff, and the truth is, if your baggage doesn’t fit in the overheard compartments ’cause it’s all full, the flight attendants will find a solution for you, so you’re not gonna be screwed. It’s like, you know, always be the first, you know, the last person on the plane, and honestly, also the last person off the plane. Unless you’ve got a connection, you know, are you gonna be that person standing up in the aisle with like, your head under the overheard bin like, uncomfortably for 20 minutes, like, waiting for everybody to be deplaned? Nah, sit back, chill out, get some work done. Always be the first one, I always do that, the last one on the plane, the last one off the plane if you can afford it because you don’t have a connection. That’s it, guys. That’s my favorite travel hack. I love it, and you get so much more work done and then you’re not just standing and waiting, right? Ugh, gosh, this is a fun one. I could go on all day, but I won’t. It’s been 25 minutes of pure awesomeness, am I right? But you too can work from anywhere. Just know that, that, you know, like, you know, today’s office selfie that you put on Instagram, you know that’s a glamor selfie. You know that’s for your ego. It’s not real. Nobody gets shit done on the beach, nobody, other than people who like, work on the beach. Like there actually are people, so I don’t wanna say nobody.

People who actually work on the beach that that is their job, like beach side work, but, you know, you and your laptop have no business workin’ on the beach. Go to your hotel room, go to your hostel, go wherever you, you know, go wherever you go, crank that stuff out, and then go on the beach and enjoy the beach, but if you wanna take that working on the beach selfie, I won’t blame you. I’ve done it many times, but just know it’s a little bit, it’s a fantasy. It’s a fantasy, it’s not reality. That’s it, guys. Those are my 10, 11 tips for working from anywhere, and I will be taking this on the road. In just a couple weeks, I’m going to Charleston, South Carolina visiting some friends. Gonna check out some coworking spaces there and take my own advice. Oh, and oh my gosh, speaking of awesome tools, which I didn’t even speak of this. I got this amazing thing, it’s an inverter. This is what’s gonna make my road trip happen, so this I can plug into like, the little, like cigarette outlet in my car, and I’m, you know, thanks to my amazing hubby who’s gonna be driving, I will be getting work done on the road.

Oh my gosh, you know what’s been a game changer for me ever since I came back to the States? Personal hotspots. I can do everything now in my car while traveling. So this little baby is amazing. It keeps me working when I’m on road trips in my car. Couldn’t live without it, so yeah, get yourself an inverter. If you love your iPad Pro, you can also get a little pocket charger. This is called Pocket Juice. Connects to anything with like a USB, so it can hook up, you know, it can charge up your phone, charge up your iPad Pro. Can’t charge a laptop, but this I carry in my purse, or actually, who am I kidding, my husband carries in his man satchel, and you know, whenever I’m running low I’m like, “Honey, can you juice me up?” So that’s that, workin’ on the road. Get it. Inverter is life. Yes, Megan, you know. All right, Sofia, Megan, Shannon, so excited to see you here. Hope you have a great week. I’ll see you on the road in a little bit. Talk to you next week. This has been another episode of Awkward Marketing.

About Rachael Kay Albers

Artist, Activist, Awkward Marketer. I'm the Creative Director and Lead Designer at RKA ink. I blog for small business owners who want to cut through the digital noise to craft a meaningful and beautiful online presence. After 10+ years living, traveling, and coding in Australia, Germany, Guatemala, Kenya, and Mexico, today I'm based outside Chicago with my husband, our two troublemaking dogs, and a bunch of old computer cords we're afraid to throw away. (You never know!) Click here to see what I've been up to lately.

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I’m Rachael Kay Albers, the Creative Director and Lead Designer at RKA ink. I blog for small business owners who want to cut through the digital noise to craft a meaningful and beautiful online presence. Check out what I’ve been up to lately.